Weird Scenes Inside the Silver Mine

In the haze of the desert sun, a blazing and stinging ray of energy permeating through the dirt and rocks; there were mountains and men and barrels of high octane byproducts of chemical bliss. Speeding and coursing through the conscious obliviousness of scattered desert mountains overlooking the mass of the flat ghettos below.

Drawing from the scripts of parallel associations between the conceptualizations of what were the real and material realities that leaped before my eyes and what were the mere illusions and mirages of a chemically induced paranoia of the creator’s grand design, I lived a brief existence as a Cowboy Silver Miner. Murder and mayhem and meth and the path toward ending my suffering by freeing myself of the desire that was omnipresent and attainable all at once; yet wholly stifling to the subconscious yearning to escape the bonds of servitude.

The Border Patrol were setting up roadblocks everywhere, looking for drugs and brown skinned men, women and children seeking refuge from their own desert oppression. Zooming and clinging to the highways in a beaten and dusty sportster, I climbed through the mountain passes at one hundred mph at times — invincible and on a mission of outlaw proportions determined to stay clear of the border gestapo.

Through the enclaves of polygamous fundamentalists seeking the same as me — a place of refuge — I sped across the asphalt, always on that divine mission. My refuge was the comfort of the score and the deal and the serenity of psychological destruction. In the trunk were goodies galore; the type of cookies grandma bakes in her laboratory. Evasion was a but a simple inconvenience for a twenty-one year old with a mission from the divine constructs of the self.

The silver mine was a cool refuge from the blistering radiance of a sun never blocked by a cloud. The Fighter Jets and Balloons of the Army passed overhead three times a day. Lurking below the surface, out of sight and mind from the military machinery, were the tightening tunnels of the forces of business that once upon a time stripped the land of precious silver and moved on, leaving the remnants for the modern cowboys seeking freedom and self obliteration; not being a mutually exclusive paradigm, but rather the betwixt realities of cognitive distortion.

The perilous journey into the mines began with a wooden ladder dropping five hundred feet below the surface. Slowly and consciously making one’s way into the mine, step by agonizingly careful step, the tunnels awaited — the tunnels of our consciousness and our desires which would perhaps be annihilated by the mere thought of freedoms, as intangible a perception as it was.

The modern day outlaws of mining are a fearless group of miscreants of assorted nefarious pasts including stints as brilliant philosophers and academics and artists; all of them now drawn into the mine to distort their place on earth and bring them closer to the creator. Men and women seeking the meaning of their suffering on earth coexisted with the seldom understood contradictions of their collectively manifested delusions.

Men in Bushes with Binoculars

After a few days deprived of sleep and fueled by the byproducts of modern inorganic chemistry, the MIBBs could creep up suddenly, yet seamlessly be an intricate part of the desert landscape and a constant presence within the psyche. The MIBBs and Military and Border Patrol were forever and always ingrained in the path of the cowboy silver miner.

The Preta took a circuitous journey to the mines. Nothing more than a ghost who was barely visible to the inhabitants and miners as his suffering was more than the typical human had to bare, yet by his design and his design alone. The Preta lived a solitary life consumed by MIBBs and the dissonance of self, soul and material realities. This fire monkey fed on the release of beauty and knowledge and power coursing from the needle into his veins. Symbiosis of natural and supernatural was easily obtained by the Preta.

Siddhartha himself was slowly becoming mortal as his eightfold path was one of twisted humanity and regret for not following the path of least resistance. Had he drawn a hand in life toward the noble path, perhaps the silver mine cowboys would be but reverie in the subconscious rather than the material reality of a path toward being merely human: fallible and desiring the white heat of bliss.

My time as a cowboy silver miner was but a brief one; never obtaining enlightenment through cold rushes of the blissful indulgence of chemical radiance. After leaving the mines for good, I would myself transform into a Preta for a time, bestowing havoc and pain on those who crossed my twisted path. As I look back with fondness and horror during my time in the desert, I am subconsciously intertwined within the silver mines of material destiny and the paths of enlightenment yet to be ventured.

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Copyright: Curl Publishing Incorporated. Cannot be reproduced or republished without the written or implied consent of Curl Publishing Incorporated.

Comments

Todd, you really do need to keep writing, I see a book or ten in your future. I am going to have to read this again when I’m less tired and less distracted because I am sure I’ve missed several metaphors and entwined meanings.

‘Life’ is very interesting and mysterious with all of its twisting and winding paths that branch off into too many crossroads to be counted. Our lives could be compared to a movie that always has the same beginning and the same ending but with endless variations of all that occur in between (unlike those movies on DVD where the beginning and middle are constant but you can pick your choice of 2-3 possible endings). I’m just wondering if after all that is said and done, at the end of the path we end up exactly where we are meant be? Just a thought.

Written by Todd Curl on June 7, 2010.

Thanks again for the kind words Patricia. I suppose my stories are culled from real life events with much alliteration and reverie thrown in. For me personally, the truths of my life — of my journey — are stranger than any fiction a could dream of. Indeed, our movies begin and end the same (perhaps), yet the script is never static, but a never ending bridge of events, associations, ideas and emotions.

Written by Kendra on June 9, 2010.

Your writing effects me on levels few others have been able to attain. The really profound thing is that you have no idea how brilliant you really are. Keep writing. I can’t wait to see what is next.

it’s never got weird enough for me , this a great ideas for Hunter S thompson or raoul duke whatever name of gonzo-writer you want ,he was best in what he is doing ,read him because he he was be master of gonzo style and remeber “crazy never die “

Written by Dave on June 16, 2011.

Nice writing, man. I was stoked by some of the lines. Desert days are probably over but not writing. Etch out the words before they evade you. You certainly have the edge.